The Gary Stevenson Effect
What a former financial trader can teach us about climate comms
Occasionally I wander into my partner’s office and take a look at what he’s watching on YouTube (he’s a software engineer, so there’s a lot of YouTube going on while codes are waiting to be run). Inevitably it’s something outrageous.
“How I Spent Almost $1,000,000 on Dates.”
“144 Hours Standed in the World’s Most Unknown Country with No Phone.”
Or my personal favourite: “Man Lives in Airport for 18 Years.”
But earlier this year I noticed the screen was frequently dominated by a scruffy buzzcut man with a cockney accent. Eventually I stayed to watch.
Turns out my partner had discovered Gary Stevenson — a maths prodigy who became a Citibank trader during the Global Financial Crisis. He often describes himself as the bank’s top trader (and even the best in the world), a claim that some of his former colleagues dispute. Still, Stevenson’s story reads like a classic hero’s journey:
A kid from East London, the son of a postal worker, grows up poor, gets into trouble with the law, dreams of a better life
He leaves home, earns an economics degree at the London School of Economics, and lands a trading role at one of the world’s most powerful banks.
Disillusioned with what he learns on the inside, he steps away, convinced he’s seen the truth of the world. He returns home determined to share that knowledge and fight to save the wellbeing of people in his community
The Gary Stevenson of today no longer works as a trader. He spends his time writing, making YouTube videos, and appearing on TV to spread a simple message: inequality is the blind spot economists are ignoring (and it will soon cripple the economy).
➡️ His channel is worth checking out: Garys Economics
You’ve got to be skeptical of people who come out swinging with a story as wild as Gary’s, especially when paired with the sheer volume and frequency of his content (does he want to be a guru? what’s he trying to achieve here?).
But there are qualities that set him apart — traits that make his message more credible, and make people (myself included) more inclined to listen. These qualities make Stevenson the perfect messenger for his cause, and they’re also exactly the qualities we need to see more of in climate communications.
Last week I wrote about “the unimpeachable evidence of the person who was there.” Someone on LinkedIn commented that this ties neatly to the idea that the messenger can matter more than the message. Exactly. In the climate space, what we need more of isn’t new talking points — it’s the right people to deliver them. People who will actually be believed by the audiences we’re trying to reach.
So let’s look at what makes Gary such an effective messenger for inequality.
Dual citizenship
Gary holds a passport to both sides of the debate. He grew up working-class, in poverty. He speaks to the working class as one of their own. At the same time, he spent years on trading floors surrounded by the richest people in business, at the very top of global finance. He’s seen what happens on the inside.
What does this look like in the climate space? Katharine Hayhoe is the perfect example here. She’s an Evangelical Christian and a climate scientist. She can speak with authority on climate change, but she can also speak with authenticy to people who share her faith and/or live in her area (Texas). To these people, she’s not just ‘another Liberal elite peddling climate nonsense’ — she’s one of them who ventured out and came back to tell the truth.
The look
Nothing about Gary Stevenson has been shined up or toned down. Actually, his appearance would suggest he cares so much about inequality that he doesn’t even have time to change his shirt, shave his beard, or tidy up the kitchen behind him. It’s all about the message, the message, the message.
When it comes to climate messengers, we’ve got to stop obsessing over polish and poise and start letting normal people tell their stories. Greta Thunberg is a good example here: she has that recnogisable, defiant face. She was young and completely unconcerned with appearances — no makeup, no ‘cool’ clothes, no dressing up to play a part. She was just a real kid with a message for the world.
The voice
Closely tied to “the look” is Gary’s voice. I honestly think this is one of the reasons he shot to fame so quickly. He doesn’t sound like anyone else talking about economics in public. His Ilford accent is as thick as ever, and the fact that he’s never tried to soften or reform it (as so many do when they enter the public sphere) makes him both instantly recognisable and deeply believable.
Stevenson has actually spoken about this. In one of his videos, he reflects on the fact that most people in media, finance, and big business come from wealthy backgrounds, saying something like: “If you don’t have anyone that sounds like me, you’re in trouble.”
We don’t necessarily need cockney accents to get people on board with climate change, although, hey — maybe it’ll help! But we do need accents people can relate to — voices of all kinds, not just the polished tones of East Coast–educated Americans. That kind of diversity could go a long way toward getting more people on board.
Raw emotion
Beyond accents and vocabulary, the emotional pitch of a messenger’s voice is often what matters most. Gary’s delivery is usually composed, but you can feel the emotion and desperation just beneath the surface.
He’s very deliberate about his persona: it isn’t lighthearted, it isn’t funny — it’s a desperate plea. When TV hosts try to banter with him or steer the conversation somewhere trivial, he refuses. His response is always some version of: “I’m here to talk about inequality.” That clarity cuts through the more performative elements of public debate and goes a long way to earning Stevenson more credibility on his Quixotic mission.
You can tell when someone claims to represent a cause but is clearly just relishing the spotlight. With Stevenson, the impression is the opposite. Who knows — maybe he is a phony — but right now, he comes across as someone who genuinely doesn’t enjoy being in the limelight. It feels like he talks about inequality not because he wants to, but because he has to.
Greta’s raw emotion works in a similar way. Just think of the “How dare you speech!” — it landed because it was so shocking and so full of emotion, crystallising the rage of an entire generation.
No monetisation
These days, we’re all in the habit of following the money (as we should be). It’s hard to do that with Stevenson. His YouTube videos run without ads. There are no hidden courses, no coaching schemes. Yes, he has a book — but a book will never earn him anywhere near what he made at Citibank. That makes it easier to believe his motive is genuine. Maybe this is all some long-term play to build an audience, but at this stage, it doesn’t look that way.
(This might be a timely moment to add that, if you see prompts to upgrade to a paid subscription of The Climate Communicator, I’m sorry! I don’t put these in here, but we’re experimenting with what happens to the Substack algorithm if a publication has a paid offering. I’ll report back on our experiment!)
Unfortunately, truly believable climate messengers need to come across with similarly pure motives. They can’t appear to be monetising their audience or advancing a hidden agenda. Even if that didn’t eventually distort their message, it is instantly discrediting.
On top of that, climate messengers face the exhausting challenge of being branded “imperfect activists” — criticised for not living up to their cause because they fly, drive, or make any ordinary human choice. It’s infuriating, but the only response is to keep defending them when those attacks come.
So, yes — finding the right climate messengers is not an easy task. They need multiple group identities, pure motives, unassailable track records. Most of all, they need to be completely themselves. As algorithms flatten our culture and debates grow nastier and more personal, it’s getting harder and harder for people to truly be themselves in public.
But when they are, it’s almost impossible to ignore.
What we’re curious about this week
📚 Book: Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, by David Graeber — I’d heard about Graeber’s concept of bullshit jobs at least a decade ago, when his original essay made headlines. I understood what he meant immediately because it felt like most of the jobs I had had in my life had been largely, if not entirely, some form of BS job. This week I finally read the book, which is probably unnecessarily long (the essay would suffice for most) and a little too semantic at many points. Still, the idea that the private sector (the so-called bastion of efficiency) can create so many wasteful and unnecessary jobs and processes is a helpful tool to keep in mind as debates about small government vs. big government / private sector superiority vs. public sector inferiority intensify.
🎙️ Podcast: MAHA Is a Bad Answer to a Good Question — You’re all probably subscribed to Ezra at this point but this was a highly insightful episode about the state of health policy and attitudes in the US, and what’s led up to this point. I found the sections on RFK’s backstory particularly interesting, even though I think he’s a total crackpot.
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